Yes, Jets quarterback Christian Hackenberg has changed his throwing motion. No, his head coach didn’t know it was happening.

“He hasn’t talked to me about it,” coach Todd Bowles said Saturday, via the New York Daily News. “He just worked on it. I’ve learned about it after that fact.”

In an ordinary situation, that would be odd. But with Hackenberg languishing on the bench to the point where some wonder whether he’ll ever play for the Jets or anyone, Hackenberg has every reason to do whatever he has to do to improve, because whatever he’s done to this point isn’t working.

A second-round pick in 2016, Hackenberg has yet to make a regular-season appearance. With four quarterbacks currently on the roster (Hackenberg, Teddy Bridgewater, Josh McCown, Sam Darnold), chances are that either Hackenberg or Bridgewater won’t be when the 2018 regular season begins.

UPDATE 1:11 p.m. ET: The initial version of this article said the Jets didn’t know Hackenberg was changing his motion. Apparently, the Jets did. Bowles didn’t. Which is odd, but which also demonstrates the relative irrelevance of Hackenberg at this point.

Actually, it not that whatever Chris has done in the past isn’t working – it’s whatever the JETS and their coaching staff is doing isn’t working. The coaching and direction they give is incompetent.

It’s their job to develop him. They haven’t or more likely don’t know how. All they keep doing is drafting and signing guys and hoping they know what to do. QB coach on the JETS has to be one of the easiest jobs in the NFL. No one expects you to actually do anything.

Doesn’t it demonstrate that Todd Bowles is a horrible defensive minded coach who doesn’t have a clue what the offense does? There’s a reason Andy Reid, Doug Peterson, Jay Gruden, and Jon Gruden have quarterbacks who improve and play well while defensive minded coaches like Jeff Fisher, Romeo Crennel, Wade Phillips, John Fox, and others keep getting fired and blaming it on the quarterbacks, none of whom ever improved.

The right thing to do would be to let this kid go and see if any of 31 teams are interested. Let him seek a trade… that’s what the GM allowed the two backup QB’s in Cleveland did. The fact that he hasn’t even been on the field in a regular season game is mind boggling. If he had come out after his freshman year at Penn State (he obviously couldn’t), he would have been a Top 10 pick. He’s an interesting case and actually regressed at the college level. The Jets are doing him no favors by keeping him around.

Bowles is in a no- win situation. He is yet another in a series of bright co-ordinators thrown to the wolves. First time HCs rarely find success because they have no one to mentor them day to day. They are walking into a situation in which they have to have the answer day 1. The politics of football are as vicious and these 1st time HCs have to balance that and rebootIng a program from square 1 in most cases. If I owned a football coach, I’d never pick a first time HC unless I promoted the current head coach to GM and he could be around to assist in the day to day activities. Sean McVay is an anomele and he had a stacked D, and a first round QB. Fisher was just a disaster as a coach. He walked into a rare opportunity. Couple that with a high profile team in a large media market, I’d never take that job as a first time HC. Top Co-ordinator pay is 2 mil or so a year. Rather do that and pick my spot.

I have followed the Jets for years. When they drafted Hackenberg they told him not to work on his mechanics and instead learn the playbook.
They wasted a year of development time They should have had him work with a pro-trainer 100% of the time. What good is a QB if he is inaccurate?
What use would Tom Brady be if he had a 50% completion percentage and was always off on his timing?

well, when you’re 4th behind Fitzpatrick and a guy who can’t take a punch from a safety, it’s probably time to try a diff throwing motion … like one where you complete passes but then he was drafted by the Jets.